Restaurants Suits

Five black customers have filed a discrimination lawsuit against a Denny's restaurant, saying they were seated behind a partition and ignored by waitresses. The restaurant chain denied any wrongdoing. The five filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Orlando, WESH-TV reported. The black customers said they were ignored while several customers came in and were served. When the black customers were finally served, their waitress got their order wrong.

The Justice Department has reached a civil rights settlement with the nationwide Denny's restaurant chain, which has been hit with dozens of allegations of bias against blacks, according to a department official. Details of the settlement were not immediately available, according to the official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity. CBS reported that Flagstar Cos.

A Superior Court judge Friday ordered a downtown Los Angeles restaurant to reinstate a waitress who successfully sued the eatery for age discrimination. Otto Rothschild's restaurant at the Music Center was ordered to rehire Lisa Marie Belanger, 51, who was awarded $596,500 in compensatory and punitive damages by a jury in December. Judge Charles E. Jones also refused to grant a retrial request by attorneys for the restaurant and its parent company, Restaurant Enterprises Group. Charles T.

Three years ago, Jack A. Clark, a 36-year-old auto mechanic, sat down to dinner at the Mexicali Rose restaurant in nearby Alameda and bit into a hand-prepared chicken enchilada. Suddenly, according to his lawyer, Clark was on the floor choking from a one-inch bone caught in his throat. Suffering serious injuries, he was rushed by ambulance to a hospital. Three throat operations later, his medical bills exceeded $25,000.

A woman who claims she was permanently scarred after a hot pickle from a McDonald's hamburger fell on her chin is suing the restaurant for $110,000. Veronica M. Martin claims in a lawsuit filed in Knox County Circuit Court in Knoxville, Tenn., that the burn also caused her physical and mental pain. Her husband, Darrin, is seeking $15,000 for being "deprived of the services and consortium of his wife." In 1994, a New Mexico woman was awarded $2.

Restaurant Enterprises Group Inc. agreed Thursday to apologize to food giant General Mills Inc., pay unspecified compensation and yank TV ads claiming that fish served at REG's Coco's restaurants tastes better than that of Red Lobster, a General Mills subsidiary. The ads end with a view of the Red Lobster logo in which the letters b and t are dropped, leaving "Red Loser." In a lawsuit filed in U.S.

GB Foods Corp. said it has settled a lawsuit brought by a group of franchisees of GB's Green Burrito fast-food restaurants. The settlement provides 400,000 shares of common stock to be held in escrow for the plaintiffs, but no cash payments. The company did not say on Friday how many plaintiffs were involved or the nature of their lawsuit, and a spokesman could not be reached for comment. The company said the litigation cost $2.9 million to defend and contributed to the bulk of $4.

The parents of an 18-year-old Huntington Beach youth killed in a car crash have sued two local restaurants, alleging that they negligently served alcohol to the underaged driver of the car. Christopher Clarke died last summer when a car driven by an 18-year-old boyhood friend plunged off Ortega Highway. His parents, Kevin and Lynn Clarke, are seeking unspecified damages from DP's Pub and Grill in Newport Beach and Mario's restaurant in Huntington Beach.

Did the owners of a popular string of Peruvian restaurants work their immigrant employees up to 14 hours a day for no pay? Or were they simply the victims of some lousy lawyering? The fate of the family-owned El Pollo Inka restaurant chain may depend on the answer, after a federal judge this week awarded three former waiters at the Southland chicken restaurants $1.1 million in back wages and damages. U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins entered the judgment Monday after El Pollo Inka Inc.